Who Lives Near Wellingborough?

[waue1978]

Got a phone call Thursday from my manager at work to let me know that I'll be starting my training for my new job soon after I go back to work - the week after to be precise. So after 4 weeks off, I've got 1 week back in the sh... sorry, warehouse & then I'm off to Wellingborough for 3 weeks training. Going to be coming home for the weekends, but I think I'm working nights while I'm there & going to be stuck in a hotel room with bugger all to do during the week. Don't think I'm going to have that much internet access either as the hotel charges £10 a day for WiFi (& I doubt the company will cover that). At least I'll be ok for food - McDonalds next door & apparently the pub over the way does good grub.

So, is there anybody living near Wellingborough that I can go visit to talk Pugs with or any scrapyards that would otherwise be too much of a jaunt from home? Failing that, does anybody have any other suggestions for what I could do in my downtime up there? Best I've come up with is to go into work for the extra hours to try & shorten my time away from my little boy.

[highlander]

McDonalds offer free WiFi - if it's right next door, you might be able to leech a connection from them

[waue1978]

I wouldn't have thought you'd be able to from the hotel - they wouldn't get their £10 a day if you could - but I'll probably be eating out of there most days so may take the laptop with me!

[Gary406]

£10 a day . what the hell , how do they get away with that

, laptop and invest in a top up dongle for temp use.

[waue1978]

Got an o2 top up dongle that I got ages ago that I hardly use. Can't remember how much it is to use though.

[lozz]

Got an o2 top up dongle that I got ages ago that I hardly use. Can't remember how much it is to use though.

£10 for 1gb normaly
then its £15 for 3gb and so on
the more you put on the top up the bigger saving you get on them,

[FarmerPug]

do the old fashoned thing, buy a good book (or 3 for 3 weeks depending on how much you get through a week) and enjoy.
Can i suggest 'bmw and rover a brand too far' a very good read.

[Doggy]

Wellingborough......

Failing that, does anybody have any other suggestions for what I could do in my downtime up there? Best I've come up with is to go into work for the extra hours to try & shorten my time away from my little boy.

Spend some time chatting with your bodygaurds and whoever's gaurding your armoured car?

So, is there anybody living near Wellingborough that I can go visit to talk Pugs with or any scrapyards that would otherwise be too much of a jaunt from home?

I'm about 16 miles away, Waue. You're welcome to drop by, so long as you don't mind building sites and the odd multiple Cavalier King Charles spaniel attack..
There's one of the newer members with 'Rushden Northants' as his location, IIRC, which is virtually next door.
The scrappies around here are the good old fashioned variety that let you root about yourself, but I've only seen D8 saloons so far, there's some bigger outfits around Northampton that may be worth a plunder.

[waue1978]

Well, 2 weeks into my training now & I can't say it's been a bed of roses. First night up there I just wanted to go home as I thought I'd never learn it all & was missing my family. After each night though, a little bit more sank in & I've been gradually producing my own little instructions folder for when I've got nobody to ask for help!

Picked up the hire car on the Monday a couple of hours before I was due to leave, packed my bags in the back, spent my last bit of time with my little boy then set off. Took 1hr 40mins to get up there taking it relatively steady, so got my self checked in to the hotel before I had to start work. Here is my trusty steed for the 3 weeks in the hotel car park:









It's definitely designed with the family in mind. There's a storage cubby in the floor in front of each seat, drawers under the front seats, cupholders everywhere, picnic tables in the back of the front seats, sunblinds built into the rear doorcards & there's even an extra mirror above the windscreen so you can see what the kids are doing in the back! It's pretty quick too, but I think a lot of that is down to the very closely stacked 6 speed box. According to the reg on an insurance quote it's a Renault Grand Scenic 1.5DCi Dynamique Tomtom (with non-functioning sat-nav). Have to say though, while it is nice to have a nearly new car to use, I'm not overly impressed with how far fuel economy has come along in real terms. Renault claim that it will do 48mpg on the urban cycle, but I reset the computer before I left & here's what I got at a steady 70mph using the cruise on the way up:



Funky instruments eh? Although this is something else I'm not too sure about with it. At least if my clocks start playing up, I'll probably still have a speedo or rev counter - anything goes wrong with that TFT screen in the Scenic & you've got nothing. That said though, I think I was lucky to get a diesel 7 seater for the 3 weeks. When we get hire cars at work we pretty much get what we're given & I was told that we don't get diesels very often. One of the girls was up on a Health & Safety course last week & she got a 1.8 petrol Vauxhall Insignia SRi. That was quite nice (we went out for a spin in it so I could show her how to get the cruise working) but an absolute pig to park due to the shape & size of it. It was massive. That one also wasn't that great for economy, but it could've been because she didn't realise it had a 6th gear too!

Here's the hotel I've been staying in:



Here is my luxurious room:







It's ok for somewhere to sleep, but I do get the impression that if you could get Tesco Value hotels, this would be what the rooms were like. Telly only has 5 channels & BBC News. Internet access is £10 a day (hence my using the Pay & Go dongle up there) & the meals don't look cheap either. Thankfully though, a couple of the lads who'd been up there before told me the best place to eat was the pub over the road. They weren't kidding either! It's called the Priory:



Here's the menu:

http://www.pub-explorer.com/orchid/free ... priory.pdf

I'm gradually working my way through it with a different meal (although I have had the same starters a few times now) each day. The desserts are heavenly.

Only one more week to go now & I'll be back home. Now have 5 days to get everything added to memory so that I'll be able to do the job when needed without needing constant help, but it'll be well worth it if I can as the guys that are training me are on a fair bit more than I am - & I'm already on a bloody good wage for what I do. Then when I get home, I've already got a long list of things that need doing & I'll crack on with cleaning up that SRi interior & get it on Ebay.

Was planning on visiting a couple of breakers while I was up here to get some bits & bobs that I need (as I can't really go to scrapyards with a 3yr old when I'm home), but by the time I wake up in the afternoon & get scrubbed everywhere's shut. Leaves me enough time to go over the road & get dinner, then sit in the hotel room for about 2hrs watching dvds on my portable player.

[steve_earwig]

What a soul-less blob of plastic How fast does it go in first?

I had to look Wellingborough up on Google It's right in the middle of...er.... bugger all really

[waue1978]

What a soul-less blob of plastic How fast does it go in first?

I had to look Wellingborough up on Google It's right in the middle of...er.... bugger all really

Not very fast at all really. It's one of these cars where you need to short shift into 2nd as soon as you pull away to get onto roundabouts & out of junctions.

Wellingborough isn't a great place to stay. Shopping is sh*te. They've got a big Tesco, Sainsburys & Morrisons, but when I went hunting for a pressie to bring back for the little man I found that there's no toy shops & that all 3 supermarket's combined still have half the choice that we have in our one. I ended up driving into Northampton to Toys R Us.

& after all the trouble I went to, he didn't even look for a pressie when I got back as he was too pleased to see me. When Mummy comes back from her trips to Ireland the first thing he does is go rooting through her bag for his pressie!

[DiscoPol]

Waue I completely agree on the 6 speed thing, my new C5 has 6 speeds and first is next to useless, into second and away she flies

Also mate i feel for you on the little lad side i also have a 3 year old boy and it would kill me to be away from him for more than about 12 hours if im honest , still you must be nearly finished up there now mate.

dont forget to drive that hire car into the ground, drive it like you stole it, thats what they are for

[waue1978]

Nearly at the end of my 3rd week now. Think I've managed to commit a fair bit of what I've learnt to memory, but I've managed to produce my self a very helpful instruction folder with pictures & tips all in the right order of what I have to do. It's only 88 pages!

However, had a heads up from my manager back home that they may be looking for me to do another week up here. He's not 100% on it, but he's a decent guy & wanted to give me a bit of prior warning so that I could be prepared. They've invested a fair bit of money in me doing this with the hotel, meals & hire car so I'm not really in a position to be awkward about it. As it stands at the moment though, I'm at least home for the weekend & we've got a little fact finding (1 day) trip to Yorkshire planned for early Tuesday morning, so I lnow I'm home for the next few days at least. Wife still not too happy though as it means she's potentially got work & domestic chores on her own for another week & my little boy probably won't be too chuffed at Daddy going again. Still, I'm doing this for all our benefit anyway, or at least, that's what I keep telling myself.

On a lighter note though, I took a trip up to Corby this afternoon to visit our very own Doggy. Am now well acquainted with the 180bhp monster & I've got 2 friends for life in the dogs. Cheers for the tea & chat mate, it was well worth the trip out. There is, however, a downside...

I bloody want a 2.2 now!

[Doggy]

On a lighter note though, I took a trip up to Corby this afternoon to visit our very own Doggy. Am now well acquainted with the 180bhp monster & I've got 2 friends for life in the dogs. Cheers for the tea & chat mate, it was well worth the trip out. There is, however, a downside...

I bloody want a 2.2 now!

You're welcome, nice meeting you too.

Offer limited to sane, dog-friendly 406 owners. No purchase necessary. Terms and conditions apply. Other HDi's are available.

[plod]

I take it, it was very impressive Waue